


The Box Below

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-08
Updated: 2010-07-08
Packaged: 2017-10-10 11:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/99184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If time can be rewritten, then this is an early draft.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Box Below

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through all of Season 5.
> 
> Thanks to missmollyetc and Iulia for beta!

  
The sun always shines on Leadworth.

Not at night, of course; at night it's dark and sometimes at night it rains, and sometimes just at dusk or just before dawn, turning the light all misty. But when the sun is up the sun always shines, big and bright and always burning.

Nothing ever changes in Leadworth.

Everything is always just as it has always been, except that people are born, and people grow up, and sometimes people go away. People who go away never come back.

Amelia Pond's parents went away a little while ago, and Amelia and her Aunt Shannon are the only ones left in the big house with the blue door. Amelia has a sinking feeling that it's her fault her parents aren't coming back, because Amelia is different from everyone else in Leadworth. Amelia draws pictures of night skies that aren't just cloudy and dark--night skies bright with _stars_\--even though there are no stars. Amelia thinks there should be ducks, too--because a duckpond is a kind of pond (all things called Pond interest Amelia), a kind of pond for ducks. But there aren't any ducks, and never have been, and yet there is the name.

Amelia's parents are gone, and people in Leadworth act as if her parents never were, but Amelia remembers them. She means to find them. Only she thinks that maybe it's her mother who told her about stars, and made her think about ducks, and she is terribly afraid that that is why her parents had to go away--because Amelia let on that she knew things other people don't know, things that are different from the forever sameness of Leadworth. That means going away is a punishment, and there's someone who makes you go if you're bad. No one ever says anything like that out loud, but Amelia thinks it must be true. Otherwise she wouldn't feel so horrible to know her parents had gone away, and other people wouldn't be so careful never to speak of them.

Amelia decides one night that she'll go away, too. She'll find out where Away is, and she'll go there. She'll find her parents. And if Leadworth isn't the same anymore without any Ponds at all, well, too bad for Leadworth. Amelia still remembers her parents, and she wants them back.

People in Leadworth don't ask questions.

Amelia does, though. Once Amelia starts asking questions about Away, and who goes there, and where it is, it doesn't take long at all before she's on her way there herself.

It is a punishment. There are people who send you there if you're bad--people who include the psychiatrist Amy's Aunt Shannon made her talk to about those stars. Amelia bit the woman, at the end, not so much because Amelia didn't want to be sent away but because she had sent Amelia's mother and father away, or someone like her had. They said you could trust them and then they sent you Away, which wasn't really away at all, but in the heart of Leadworth, in the hospital. There was a lift that started at the ground floor and went down and down and down, and Amelia was bundled into it alone with nothing to do but wait until it stopped.

When the doors opened again Amelia stepped out into a cavern, lit in a strange, flickering, reddish twilight. The doors slammed shut behind her, and there were no elevator buttons on this side, no way to get back up. Amelia realized abruptly that she was never going to see the sun again--but then she had never seen the stars, either. She would remember anyway.

There were people moving around the cavern, but Amelia realized as she ran toward them that they were all too small to be her parents (too small to be her mum, anyway; she already came up to her dad's shoulder, and some of them were tall enough to have been him, only too skinny). She recognized them when she got close--they were kids who had gone away, the ones who were naughty or not clever enough in school. Amelia thought for a moment of Rory, who was smart and good and might have been her friend if she hadn't asked all those questions, and then she decided she would remember Rory, just like she remembered the sun.

For now, though, she was on a mission. She announced to the nearest of the kids, as he plodded along carrying a pile of stuff from one side of the cavern to the other, "I'm looking for my parents. Where are the grownups?"

He looked at her blankly for a moment, looked down, and then shrugged. "Grownups go to the box. We all go to the box if we're here long enough."

"Then I'm going to the box right now," Amelia said firmly. "I'm going to find my parents. Where's the box?"

The boy nodded toward a dark place on the edge of the cavern--a doorway, maybe, with sharp, straight edges. Amelia thought she could see lights beyond it. She turned and ran toward the door, thinking of finding her parents, thinking of telling her mother that she had remembered about stars, that she was sorry she had told (though she wasn't really sorry she'd told, only sorry that Leadworth had sent her parents away). But the square of darkness wasn't a doorway, or not quite a doorway. The darkness was the box, which was made of something so deeply black that the cavern around it seemed dimmer, as though it ate the light. The box was open on one corner, and inside there was a man.

At least, Amelia thought it was a man, under all the chains and wires. She could see tattered clothes and plain brownish hair, and closed eyes above pale cheeks. As Amelia stood there, watching, one of the wires began to give off sparks, and the man jerked and shook, and made a sad little sound like a broken kettle. Amelia stood well back, but she watched. She had to watch, because she didn't recognize the man. He wasn't anyone from Leadworth, so he'd never been sent away, so it stood to reason, didn't it, that he'd come from here. The box was where the grownups went when they went away--but this man was in the box and he wasn't one of them. He was something else.

When the wire stopped sparking and the man went still again, Amelia stepped forward cautiously and found a place that wasn't covered in chains or in wires--his knee, which was a bit knobbly, showing through a tear in his striped brown trousers. Amelia knocked against it gently, and said, "Hello? Anyone home?"

The man moved a little, and made some more noises like various kinds of broken things, and then he cracked one eye open to look at her. Amelia held very still when he did that; he seemed much older when he looked at her, older than anyone Amelia had ever met--old like stones were old, not old like a person.

"No," he said after a moment, in an ancient, rusty voice. "No children."

Amelia looked around. Everyone she could see in this place was a child. "There's lots of children," Amelia said.

"Not here," he said, and his eye closed again. "Not for me. I don't take children. I'm not that kind of monster."

She'd been feeling sorry for him until just then, but she heard the word _monster_ and she realized that if he didn't take children then he _did_ take grownups--he'd taken her mum and dad somewhere, and they weren't coming back, just as Aunt Shannon and the psychiatrist and everyone had said. They weren't coming back no matter what Amelia did, and it was his fault, that man in the box. He'd done it.

Amelia let out a tea-kettle shriek of her own and leapt at him, not caring anymore about the wires or the chains or what might happen to her. She flailed wildly at the man and ripped at the wires and chains and his tattered clothes and his plain brown hair, and she didn't realize he wasn't trying to stop her until he did stop her, pushing her away from him so suddenly and strongly that she nearly fell down--and then she did fall down, because the wires all turned into a sparking mess, and the man's eyes flashed open this time as he shook, but he didn't make a sound.

She couldn't look away from his eyes, and she couldn't fail to understand that he was hurting, that he was _being hurt_, by someone terrible who wouldn't even come and punch him, some coward who sent shocks through the wires to hurt him--someone up in Leadworth, she supposed. And even though she had been punching him (Amelia was no coward, never) he had made sure to push her away so she wouldn't get zapped herself. When it finally stopped his eyes drooped slowly shut, but that was worse; he looked like he was--like he wasn't in there anymore, and Amelia couldn't see whether he was breathing, under the weight of everything on top of him.

"Mister?" Amelia asked, because she'd learned already that the only thing to do when she was scared was to start asking questions until she got answers or made someone angry. "Why are you in that box, anyway? Where do you take people? Did you take my parents? Mr. and Mrs. Pond, they only came down here a couple of months ago. They were together."

The man blinked at her a couple of times, and twisted his head so he could look at her with both eyes. Amelia thought he hadn't been able to move like that before. She must have pulled some wires loose.

"Not Mister, no," he said slowly. "Doctor. _The_ Doctor, in fact, if you please. And you are?"

"Amelia Pond," Amelia said firmly, and waited, because she'd asked a lot of questions already and she meant to have them answered.

"I am in the box," the Doctor said slowly, and then paused and looked around at the box as if he didn't recognize it. "I am in this box, because the box I am normally in is exploding, somewhere near here. And because the universe is ending, everywhere and everywhen except Leadworth and now. I'm holding open a bubble of reality against the silence. The box and I are holding it open together. That is, this box, the exploding box, and me. I'm just a conduit, really."

That hardly made any sense, but Amelia pressed on. "Why are you chained up, then? Why are those wires shocking you? Why do they keep sending people down here? _Where are my parents?_"

"I'm chained because the reality bubble wasn't my first plan," the Doctor said, still slowly, but sounding more alive and younger with every word. "I meant to fly this box to the other box, blow up everything and reboot the universe, put everything back as it should be. But when I got to Leadworth I had just... I was new, and confused, and no one knew me, or believed what I could do. They wanted to save the town, instead of the universe. I thought that was a bad trade, but they didn't listen to me. So they punish me. I suppose they're punishing you, too--they said they would send me people who were dying, just the old ones, the sick ones. But they've been getting younger. I hardly noticed, except for the children. I just told the children to stay away."

"Why did they send you--" Amelia couldn't finish the question. She didn't want it answered and she wasn't sure she could make the Doctor angry, if being shocked didn't. "My parents weren't dying," she said instead, and even to Amelia her voice sounded very small, and very young.

"I'm sorry, Amelia," the Doctor said. "Your parents are dead. They helped me for a while--they became part of the link between this box and the other one. That makes it easier for me to maintain the reality bubble, makes it last longer. Makes _me_ last longer. But human brains can't do that for very long. They died. Together, like you said."

"No," Amelia whispered. She'd come to find them. She'd come Away. They had to be here, somewhere. They had to.

"I'm sorry," he said again, and he moved, under the wires and chains, as if he would have reached out for her, but she was too far away and he was too well weighted down. "I'm very sorry, Amelia. But this is all I can do, now. Your parents are gone. Most of the universe is gone. This is all there is."

"No," Amelia said, more strongly this time. "You said it's a bad trade. You said you had another plan. You could fix the whole universe."

"It wouldn't bring your parents back," he said. "They died in the box here. Their deaths are part of this reality now. If the universe came back, it would come back without them."

Amelia wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, and pretended she wasn't crying. She hardly ever cried. "What about stars, would there be stars in the sky? And ducks in the duckpond?"

"Stars," he said, frowning, squinting at Amelia. "What do you know about stars, Amelia Pond from Leadworth? Come here a moment."

Amelia moved closer, and closer again, following his beckoning fingers until he could brush the backs of them against her cheek. Amelia blinked quickly, trying not to cry, and the Doctor's thumb casually swiped a tear away as he stared at her with his knuckles against her cheek.

"You've remembered that," he murmured. "How many Ponds must have passed that down?"

"There's always been Ponds in Leadworth," Amelia informed him. "And they always name their daughter Amelia. Grownup Amelias are called Amy, and when they get married sometimes their husbands are called Mr. Pond if there aren't any other Ponds around to take their place. So nothing ever changes, and they always name their daughter Amelia. And maybe all of us remember about stars, because we never change," Amelia said, considering. "I'll remember the sun, even down here. I'm good at remembering things. I was never worried about being sent away for not being clever enough."

"Nor should you," he said slowly. "Amelia Pond of the unbroken line of Amelias. Yes, if I fixed things, then there would be stars again. I can't promise the ducks, but if you can remember the stars, I'll remember everything else."

Amy didn't really care about ducks--the duckpond was awfully small, nothing very interesting could live there--but there would be stars, and there would be a whole universe of places outside Leadworth that weren't Away--places you could go if you liked, without it being a punishment. There would be different people, and maybe things would change sometimes. Maybe it wouldn't be sunny every day.

"Mind you, I can't see how you remember the sun, either," the Doctor said. "You've never seen it. That fire in the sky is the TARDIS exploding, trapped in a time loop, trying to save me. It thinks I'm on board. Well, and in a sense I am on board--like I said, I'm the conduit."

Amelia pulled away from the Doctor's hand and started looking to see where the chains were attached, and how to get him free. She yanked at the wires wherever she found them. She carefully didn't look at the Doctor's eyes to see what he thought of it, until the Doctor said, "Amelia, reach inside my pocket, my screwdriver should be there. Use that, or you'll burn yourself."

Amelia found something in his pocket that didn't look much like a screwdriver--more like a penlight with a blue bulb on one end, but the Doctor told her how to adjust the settings, and though it popped and sparked it didn't hurt her, nor the Doctor. The chains fell and slithered away--and then slithered further, rattling their way out of the box.

Amelia looked out after them for the first time, and discovered that the kids had gathered, and were helping to pull the chains away. They didn't say anything, and neither did Amelia. She didn't know if they understood--she didn't think she understood herself--but Amelia knew they agreed with her. Something had to change. The grownups in Leadworth had sent them all here, knowing they'd never come back; it was only the Doctor who cared to protect them at all by keeping them out of the box. They'd trust the Doctor above anyone else.

"Thank you, Amelia," the Doctor said. "May I have that?"

Amelia handed over the screwdriver and stood at the edge of the open box, watching as the Doctor rearranged the wires and reattached some of them to himself. None of them seemed to hurt him, now, though by the time he finished he was trapped again under the net of them, unable to move.

"I have to go now," the Doctor said. "Stand back."

Amelia glanced back at the cavern under Leadworth--the Away which wasn't really away at all, filled with the sad and frightened children no one had wanted--and then looked in, at the Doctor. She leapt at him again, silent this time, and held onto him, pressing herself into his lap, her forehead against his cheek. "I'm coming with you."

"Amelia," he said, and she shook her head and repeated, "I'm coming with you."

He pressed his cheek against her hair, and Amelia suddenly found she remembered things she'd never known before--about the universe and about the Doctor, about the TARDIS, even what he meant when he said he wasn't this kind of monster.

"You have to stay," he said. "If you stay, and you remember me, maybe I can come back. Maybe I can do something about your parents. I had a friend once, her dad died, and we found him again. But you have to stay here and remember me, or no one will. No one in Leadworth knows what I really am."

"I'll remember you," she whispered. How could she ever forget all that? She didn't think her head could hold it all; she could barely remember her own name, she was so full of memories of him.

"You only have to remember for a little while," he said, "I'll take it back as soon as I can." Amelia wanted to ask him what that meant, but he pushed her away again, to tumble out of the box and watch it close.

The box didn't blast through the roof, as she'd expected, but it seemed to get smaller and smaller, spinning away into nowhere--Away for real, this time. There was a wild instant when everything seemed very bright and very dark at once. The children all around her kept silent, watching, waiting for what would happen next, but Amelia, who remembered, shouted, "Geronimo!"

* * *

"Please, please send someone to fix the crack in my wall," Amelia Pond said, kneeling by her bed to pray, one night when her Aunt Shannon had left her alone. "A repairman, or a policeman, or--"

She could almost remember. There was someone who would know how to fix it, someone who would remember how to fix all kinds of things, if only she could think who to ask for. It was important--she was meant to remember this, and Amelia was good at remembering things.

For an instant she remembered and couldn't believe she'd ever forgotten, or that there had ever been room in her memory for anything else. But even before she could form the words, the memory was gone again, leaving her frowning at the wall and wondering what she'd been about to say.

Before she could spend much thought on it, there was a great crash in the garden. Amelia rushed to the window to find out what it was, and saw smoke rising up in the dark to obscure the stars.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] The Box Below](https://archiveofourown.org/works/374826) by [growlery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/growlery/pseuds/growlery)




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